


Of Hissing and Missing (the meaning, not the point)

by Tyler_Blackwing



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Crowley is Bad at Being a Demon (Good Omens), Crowley's Plants (Good Omens), Declarations Of Love, Dining at the Ritz (Good Omens), Fluff, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Not Beta Read, POV Aziraphale (Good Omens), Post-Apocalypse, Self-Indulgent, Soft Aziraphale (Good Omens), Soft Crowley (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 09:55:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20356555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyler_Blackwing/pseuds/Tyler_Blackwing
Summary: There was this specific, soft little "Hisshisshiss" Crowley would make sometimes.Aziraphale started to get an idea of its meaning. Would he use it to get Crowley flustered? Oh yes, he would.Inspired by an adorable headcanon I saw cited on Instagram, but I can't remember the OP :( This is for them, I hope at some point I can find the original post again!





	Of Hissing and Missing (the meaning, not the point)

**Author's Note:**

> I saw this cute headcanon where Aziraphale picks up Crowley's hisses to get him flustered and I just needed to write it <3  
Hopefully at some point I'll find the OP again and send this to them, I can't remember for the life of me if they posted on Twitter or Tumblr...  
The ending took me forever to write, I just couldn't decide how to finish.  
Also I made a Twitter account for ranting, writing etc., so if you want to drop by, I go by @TylerBlackwing there, too.  
Anyways, enjoy!

It happened first during lunch. During their lunch at the Ritz, to be precise. Both of them happy and fed (Aziraphale a bit more so than Crowley), an attentive waiter ever so often refilling their well-deserved champagne, and he was going on about things he was going to do or read or eat now that they were off the hook for a while. Crowley was looking at him or the decor or the waiter, he wasn't quite sure, but he was listening to his rambling, smiling fondly since they had been served dessert. While he was still talking, he heard the demon make a small, gentle hissing sound he'd never heard until now, trailing off for a second, but not thinking much of it. So he continued talking, even as Crowley very obviously _caught_ himself hissing – then quickly pressing his lips into a fine line, blushing just the slightest bit. He was seemingly frozen in place and Aziraphale, while citing some great writer's very human depiction of heaven and hell, wondered why his friend was so shy about his hiss.

Not long after, it happened again. They were in Crowley's flat as often as they were in his bookshop, now, Crowley having the more comfortable bed, thus making the flat much more comfortable for sleepovers. Not much comfort for reading, though, he had to admit, so when the demon was still getting ready for their late breakfast, he wandered through the room with all of those beautiful plants Crowley was taking such good care of, humming a happy little melody.

“My, you get more beautiful each day“, he sighed toward a rustling corner of the room, brushing the leaves of a ficus with his fingertips. “Even though he _is_ rather strict on you, isn't he? Don't you worry. That's how he is. I am certain he does love you quite a lot.”  
“No I don't”, an annoyed voice drawled from where the demon had appeared in the door.

“Oh, dear! Speak of the devil”, Aziraphale chuckled, glancing over with a smug grin.  
Crowley snarled at him. “Bastard. Also, don't tell falsehoods, you evil Angel”, he scolded, much softer than expected. Then he raised his voice a bit. “Those cowards don't _deserve_ love, 's long as they keep pulling those stupid stunts! _Leaf spots_, Angel, and they sure as hell won't stop getting 'em if you start spoiling them rotten.”

“Yes, Dear, of course, whatever you say.” He stepped away from the plants and towards the door, Crowley strutting into the room with a menacing air. “Discipline, very important indeed.”

“Yeah, well.” The demon gave most of his way-too-little-scared plants a strict and pointed look. “You worthless imbeciles. Weeds! Hear me? If you start getting soft and go drooping on me, I'll rip you apart. One. By. One.” His voice was a hissing, threatening whisper, and he glanced over to Aziraphale, scrunching his nose as if he wanted to shoo him away, so the angel held up his hands defensively.

“I'll leave you to your pedagogic measures”, he smiled, but before he backed off, he gently touched one of the leaves in the door frame and whispered, “Hang in there, you're doing great.”  
“ANGEL!”

“Yes, yes, quite well, tickety-boo”, and he scuttled away to go find his tea cup. And he heard Crowley muttering under his breath while he left, ending with a gentle curse, and a soft “Hisshisshiss”. There it was again, sounding just as it had at the Ritz, just intentional and very, very annoyed. He started to get an idea of the meaning, the way Crowley carefully avoided him actually hearing it.

The third time, it happened at the book store. Crowley was already very comfortably drunk while he himself was only just halfway there, a nice wine induced buzz that would probably end up with them not quite sobering up and falling asleep on the couch and/or his armchair. He had been ranting again, about a customer wanting to buy a book. He was pulling his favourites out of the shelves and rearranging them on the very top, stepping up and down a small stool in the process.  
“And then they said it wasn't cheap enough and they could get it for much less at a yard sale! Can you imagine? A signed first edition; sure it has coffee spills and I would never think of selling it, but still! A _yard sale_!” Stepping down again, he turned to look expectantly at the demon, who laughed ever so softly with his eyes closed and his sunglasses resting on the table. “Crowley?”

“...Mh?”

“You're falling asleep.”

“'m not.” He shifted a little where he was sprawled on the couch, but sunk into the cushions even further. “... maybe I am.”

Aziraphale smiled fondly. “Go on then. I'll get you a blanket.”

Crowley just grunted, and he went to get something to keep him warm during his nap. Tucking him in, he gently patted his arm. “There you go. Sleep tight, dear.” His voice did not travel far, but a contented smile hovered over Crowley's sleepy features.

The demon sighed, and then, again: “Hisshisshiss.”

And Aziraphale knew. “I love you, too.”

Of course, upon waking, Crowley did not remember a thing. Which was, probably, not too bad; Aziraphale wasn't sure if he'd be able to deal with the emotional consequences yet. He had caught up, but he wasn't ready to go any faster than usual. Not quite.

At some point, however, he was bound to use his knowledge against Crowley.

To be fair, he did have to practise the hiss. To make it right, get just the right sharpness and the gentlest flow of air for the exact intonation. He felt a bit silly, standing in his bathroom, tasting this foreign language on his tongue, not even knowing a thing about the origins, the grammar, and the construction pattern of coherent sentences. He just knew that this phrase, this hiss, tasted of love, and he reveled in its strange softness, pressing a hand to his chest when he finally matched it to the sound Crowley had been making. Yes, this felt right.

So throughout the next days, he made it a point to hiss gently at Crowley whenever he had the chance.

He hissed into his teacup when they went out for scones. Crowley, just having taken his last sip, almost choked for a second there, and when he lifted his gaze and blinked innocently, the demon was burying his face in the menu.  
“Anything the matter, dear?” He gave him a concerned look and cocked his head to the side.  
“Ngk”, Crowley tried to talk but obviously failed at the first attempt. “Uh. No, I mean. _NoPe_, no problem, all good.” He had popped the P and waived a waiter over to pay, and they went outside for a walk.

On a nice, quiet evening, when they were returning from some restaurant, they crossed the street leaving a busker behind and Aziraphale continued to hum and whistle the song he had been performing. Dining at the Ritz, meeting at nine precisely – a rather odd time for a dinner, he had to admit, but the melody had caught on. Crowley gave him a funny look, as if he knew the rest of the song, and he just whistled on. “Hisshisshiss”, he sneaked in there, glanced over at his friend and saw him lose his carefully crafted air of coolness.

“Uh. Can you... can you just... _not_...?”, he mumbled distractedly, pushing his hands into his pockets.  
“Whyever not, dear? I think it sounds delightful!” He made it a point to not let him realize that he kind of knew what he was saying here.

Crowley flailed his arms and made some incoherent noises, before he settled on giving an overly dramatic, exasperated sigh. “This is stupid. I don't even wanna know why you try doing this, just stop, it's embarrassing.”

Aziraphale hooked his hand through Crowley's elbow and guided him toward his bookshop. “Alright. I'm sorry. Did I say something terribly rude?”  
Crowley's face went pink. He snarled. Then he went very, very shy. “Nah. Not really.”

So here they were. At the bookshop again.

It had been a tough day, really. Not for him, he'd mostly been in here, organizing books and having tea. But Crowley wasn't too fond of today, that was obvious, and he hadn't told him why, but when he had stumbled in here (soaking wet from the downpour outside, and almost drunk because of some reason) he had left his glasses on, flung onto the sofa, and started brooding. It had taken him about an hour of coaxing until he had started talking again, and half a bottle of a nice vintage red wine to have him sighing and rambling. Mostly about him being a demon and, despite his newly found freedom, being too good at being bad to let it go to waste; but on a deeper level about Humanity, and how cruel they could be. How little love there was to be found in this world on some days, and Aziraphale briefly wondered if Crowley's barista had maybe ruined his coffee this morning. For a while now, he was sitting next to the demon, patting his knee.  
“There, there”, he soothed. “Yes, Humanity does have some bad traits... but we've been dealing with that for _millennia_, dear. You love them so much, I know, and deep down you, too, know that there are just enough human miracles to make all of it worth saving.”

“I'm tired of this, Angel. All this. Sometimes I just... Go- _Somebody_, I wish we'd run away, let it all go to waste.”  
“No you don't.”

“... just a little.”

Aziraphale squeezed Crowleys knee fondly when the demon sheepishly admitted this fact, and he waited patiently until he seemed to look in his general direction again. An affectionate grin pulled on his lips as he decided that yes, now he _was_ ready to move.

Without looking away, without letting go of Crowley's leg, he hissed. Ever so softly, very pointedly, not hesitant at all, and he tasted the emotion on his tongue much nicer than the finest wine, and the demon's mouth went slack and his cheeks turned bright red. Had he stopped breathing, too?

“Angel – Aziraphale”, he breathed, obviously nervous and fighting against his feelings. “You... you're doing this on purpose! Ssstop it!!”  
“Mh. Maybe I said it wrong”, Aziraphale pondered dramatically. “I believe it went something like: Hisshisshiss.” He smiled, again, wider this time, with a glimmer in his eyes. Crowley almost winced at the sound.  
“You don't even know what you're saying. This's ssstupid.”

“I do believe I know exactly what I'm saying.”  
He crossed his arms in front of his chest. “No you don't.”

“Hisshisshiss.”

He covered his ears. “Ssshut up.”  
  
“Hisshisshiss.”

“I- I don't want to hear that sorta thing!” By now, Crowley was basically sobered up, sitting sunken into the sofa cushions and burying his face in his hands. “Stopstopstopssstop!”

And Aziraphale couldn't be happier. He chuckled, leaned forward, and pressed his lips to the snake mark Crowley wore, patting his knee again when he almost jumped at the contact.

The glasses were pushed up to his forehead when he stared at Aziraphale from watery, wide eyes, glimmering with fear and hope and longing and... love.

“So, my dear”, he murmured as he took Crowley's hands in his. “Do I know what I'm saying? Please don't tell me it was actually something embarrassing, because then I would have to be rather cross with you.”

“Embarrassing depends on the way you look at it”, Crowley stammered. Aziraphale could feel his pulse racing in his fingertips, their bodies entirely too used to keeping up appearances.  
  
“Tell me.”  
“What.”  
“What it means.”  
“Wha- NO I'm not gonna bloody _sssay_ it!”

“Well you had no trouble _hissing_ it before, Crowley.”

How wide those demonic eyes could become! Aziraphale stared at them, and he was reminded of the Seventh Day of Creation, when he had admitted to having given away his flaming sword.  
  
“I love you.”

Now it was Aziraphale's turn to blush. He hadn't expected his body to react like this, but it did, and it was, overall, a rather pleasant emotion. Except for the very unnecessary shaking of his hands.  
“Oh”, he breathed. “Oh, dear. So that _is _what it means.” He held the slim hands tightly in his rubbing circles with his thumb, then Crowley shook his head.  


“Nope.” He grinned a bit sheepishly. “That was just something I wanted to say for a while.”

Aziraphale was utterly puzzled at this revelation. “I beg your pardon?”

“The hiss meant something else.”

“Do enlighten me, Dear.”

“... _I really want to kiss you_.”

Aziraphale's face lit up in a bright smile.

“Well”, he whispered. “That's alright, then.”


End file.
